Some very preliminary info on Kapu or Kaapu community of Andhra
Pradesh

KAAPU
'Kaapu' or kapu means 'protector' and usually it is taken to be protector
of a village or region. (uuru kaapu, praanta-kaapu, palle-kaapu, etc).
Maybe it was a post, a title in ancient times. The Kapus are the bedrock
of Andhra Pradesh. They form the largest community in AP, but as a matter
of fact this is a broad grouping and regionally they seem to be of different
stocks. All the same it appears they were earlier inhabitants than most
other farmers here. According to old tradition the king lists refer to
kapus ruling in earlier times. Some kapu sections merge into the Reddis
(another title) in parts of Andhra Pradesh. They could be the descendants
of the very early agriculture- introducing immigrants, who cleared forests
and founded villages and towns. This could be either neolithic or megalithic
from archeology point of view, or early aryan -buddhist from culture
point of view.

In my humble opinion the Kapus and similar associated communities
in India have the best claim to be descendants of the old Aryans. .
I mean they are descended from the early aryans who spread all over India
with their iron ploughs and implements and colonised forested areas
a very long time ago. Interestingly, similar ancient darker complexioned
farming---herding communities in eastern UP, Bihar, Karnataka, Orissa,
even Tamilnadu (!) would be likely to be the genuine aryan descendants,
not the usual fair upper caste Indians who mostly seem to be linked with
more recent arrivals like iranian sakas and kushans and hunas. Sorry
if it initially goes against your ideas, but this is the most likely
thing. (you have to be detached when examining these matters. Disclaimer
for the cranks :-- I'm not kaapu). According to some friends some sections
of the kapus are de-mobilised soldiers of old dynasties who turned to
agriculture for a living.

Roots:--Since it is a diverse , large, geographically well spread group
there is no one root. Many sections resemble people of Rajasthan and
Haryana particularly the darker complexioned rajasthanis ( for instance
some bhatti rajputs).

Today most are farmers. On the whole they are sturdy, tall, sharp
featured, usually dark brown in complexion. Many of today's Kapus strongly
resemble people in Chalukya and Chola paintings, especially the
girls. Mrs Pulikesin looks like today's Naidu auntie in Nalgonda or Adoni
or Vuyyuru. ( or anywhere in AP...most of the folks featured in old
paintings are sharp featured and dark complexioned....). We're trying
to get a good picture of the ancient paintings.

The Kapus are particularly cheerful and of a sunny disposition. Many
Kaapu friends said their people in rural areas were mostly farmers but
inclined to be lazy, fond of toddy and good food and minor gambling.
They also said they were also inclined to get into fights all the time,
but were basically good natured happy go lucky folk with a great sense
of humour.
I've seen that they consider themselves as just "the people", no fancy
airs at all. In fact they ARE the people, if numbers are any indication.
)

There are many sections among the Kaapu. It seems this community is
actually the mother grouping for several others who got differentiated
down the centuries and started a separate sub regional kaapu grouping.
The Reddis share some affiliation to Kaapu, too. Curiously in recent
times some Kaapus have managed to get themselves classified as "backward
community" ---so as to get some benefits from Government. There is
nothing particularly backward about them. They are basically farmers
today but seem to take easily to technical-industrial subjects. There
are several educationists among the community, and businessmen with a
kapu background too have prospered. They are quite prominent in films,
too. A common surname is Naidu, the name is derived from Nayaka, (kakatiya
commander-warlord, later Vijayanagar commander and governors. The naidu
surname in Tamil nadu and south andhra pradesh is found among kammas
too).
In recent times there has been a series of attempts to combine politically
as a group but has not crystallised effectively. Some Kaapu friends I
asked said they dont care, it is beneath their dignity and dont want
to participate in the political games played by small communities.

Data on two blood group and three serum protein polymorphisms of the Turpu
Kapu, an endogamous population of Vizianagaram District, Andhra Pradesh (AP)
is presented. The gene frequencies for the blood group systems ABO and Rh
are within the ranges of distribution reported earlier among the caste populations
of Andhra Pradesh. The study population shows highest frequency of Hp1 allele
and the lowest frequency of Hp2 allele compared to the other populations
of AP. The Cp system is monomorphic, all individuals being the BB type. The
GC system exhibits polymorphism with the gene frequencies of GC1 and GC2
alleles showing the highest and lowest frequencies, respectively, as compared
to the caste populations reported earlier. The c2 test suggest that this
population is in Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium.

Key words: Polymorphism, blood groups, serum proteins, Turpu Kapu

The division of its population into strictly defined endogamous and hierarchical
castes and tribes characterizes Indian population structure. This is true
for each of the linguistic regions of the country as languages form barriers
of gene flow between such regions, even within apparently same castes like,
for example, Brahmins. The Kapu population is one of the major castes of
Andhra Pradesh (AP) and is distributed all over the state and form number
of endogamous sub-castes. The Kapu inhabiting the north coastal districts
of Visakhapatnam, Vizianagaram and Srikakulam are subjected to segregation
by the Kapu of the other areas of Andhra Pradesh and are referred as Turpu
Kapu i.e. the Kapu living in the eastern region (Turpu = Eastern). They maintain
endogamy among them forming a breeding unit. It is estimated that there are
about 40, 000 such units within India and although number of populations
have been genetically explored a very many still remains to be studied. The
population of the present study is one of the important populations that
remains thus far genetically unexplored. This has prompted us to take up
this study and report distribution of the polymorphic systems such as blood
groups (ABO and Rh) and serum proteins (Haptoglobin, Ceruloplasmin and Group-specific
Component) in comparison to other caste populations in AP so far studied.

Materials and Methods

A total of 130 blood samples (about 1ml in quantity) were collected by finger
prick method from healthy and unrelated males (72) and females (58) belonging
to the Turpu Kapu caste inhabiting Chinnabantupalli village, Vizianagaram
District, Andhra Pradesh. The informed consent was obtained. ABO and Rh blood
groups were typed according to the standard methods. The serum extracted
from the 1ml blood was enough to type Hp, Cp and GC using Disc gel electrophoresis
(Clark 1964). The laboratory work was carried out at the Department of Human
Genetics, Andhra University, Visakhapatnam.

Results and Discussion

The phenotype and gene frequencies of the 5 polymorphic loci studied are
presented in Table 1. The results of x 2 test for homogeneity of the phenotype
frequencies of Turpu Kapu with other AP castes is given in Table 2.

Blood group systems

In the Turpu Kapu, the ABO phenotypes and the gene frequencies are in the
decreasing order of predominance, O> B>A>AB and r>q>p, respectively,
and they are within the ranges of frequency reported earlier for populations
of AP. This population is found to be in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (c 2
= 0.01, d.f. 1) for ABO blood groups. The c 2 test suggests significant heterogeneity
in ABO frequency of the Turpu Kapu with the Kalinga (Rajeswari, 1992), Padmanayaka
Velama (Kumar, 2000), Rajaka (Parvatheesam, 1995) and Devanga (Naidu et al,
1990) castes of AP.

In case of Rh (D), this population shows 99.17% of Rh + and 0.83% Rh phenotypes.
The Rh (D) gene frequency (90.95%) is very similar to that in Padmasali (91.97%,
Devi and Veerraju, 1990). The c 2 analysis revealed significant heterogeneity
(Table 2) of Rh (D) frequency of the Turpu Kapu with Rajaka (Parvatheesam,
1995), Brahmin and Kamma (Naidu et al, 1990) and Padmanayaka Velama (Kumar,
2000).

Serum proteins

At the Haptoglobin locus, the study population exhibited the predominance
of Hp 2-2 among the three phenotypes, although this population is found to
be in HW equilibrium (Table 1). When compared to other caste populations
of Andhra Pradesh, the 2-1 phenotype is highest in frequency (48.22%) and
the 2-2 phenotype the lowest (50%). Consequently, this population exhibits
the highest frequency of Hp1 allele and the lowest of Hp2 allele among the
populations of AP. The c2 test showed significant heterogeneity with Brahmin
and Kamma (Naidu et al, 1985a), Kapu (Rao and Ramaswamy, 1974), Vysya (Gopalam
and Rao, 1981) and Viswabrahmin (Rao, 1996)

The Ceruloplasmin locus did not show any variant and all the individuals
were of the BB phenotype. It may be noted that all the Andhra caste populations
reported so far are monomorphic for this system.

The Group-Specific Component (GC) 1-1 type is the most frequent phenotype
in the study population. The population is found to be in Hardy-Weinberg
equilibrium. The population exhibited the highest frequency of GC1 and the
lowest frequency of the GC2 allele among the caste populations of AP so far
screened but the c 2 test does not suggest significant heterogeneity at this
system.

In summary, despite the modest sample size, this report may help filling
the lacuna in the genetic map of Indian populations at least with reference
to the five genetic markers studied in the hitherto unexplored population.

Acknowledgement

I take this opportunity to thank my friends, Naidu and Gayathri for their
help and support throughout this study.